CITIZEN OF THE DARKER STREETS
The Beginning of an Adventure Story
Bangkok is the place…two a.m. the time…and across the street in the dark maw of an alley waits a lean wolf of the streets…with a knife. He is waiting for me.
It is hot and still and in the fetid air there is a lingering smell of dust, overripe fruit, sweaty bodies, heat, and opium….It is the smell of the tropics, the smell of Bangkok, of Makassar, of Pondicherry. It is the smell of death.
Behind me, drawn back into a shadowed doorway, is a hulking brute with huge hands and powerful shoulders. He has been following me, and like his slat-ribbed comrade across the way, he has slowly been edging me away from the principal streets, readying me for the kill.
My name is Martin Cross, they call me “China” Cross, and my home is anywhere in the world.
Somewhere in town there is a girl, a beautiful, luscious girl, with a golden-tan body like something out of a lonely man’s dream of paradise, a girl lost and frightened…and in danger.
So here I am, citizen of the darker streets, bystander in the alleys of dingy commerce, spectator in the theater of iniquity, a searcher for things lost…a man looking for a girl in a town where girls are a dime a dozen. China Cross, the man who finds things, that’s me. Paintings, matched pearls, rare volumes, hidden wills, the rarest of rate stamps, strange wild animals from the deepest jungle, and even lost and frightened girls in Bangkok.
China Cross whose life right now isn’t worth a plugged peso or a shot of cut gin. A man whom somebody had spotted for what he was before he had his feet off the dock, a man who is never supposed to see the light of another day.
Sweat trickling down my stomach, sweat trickling between my shoulder blades, sweat greasy on my face, it is two a.m. and the only way open for me is toward the rice mills and the wharves, toward the narrowing streets and the dark slips where sampans bob on the slow swell of the harbor waters.
Out of the doorway I move and behind me moves the one man, across the street the other. Ahead of me there is a narrow and odorous alley and they are pressing me toward it. Somewhere out on the water sounds the deep-throated blast of a steamer, and then in the alleyway before me there is movement, a quick rush of bare feet on paving, and there is no time—knives flash, and my shoulder hits a door in the wall near me. The latch gives way and I fall inward into deeper, more velvety blackness, and as I fall my hand goes to my shoulder holster and my .380 automatic jumps, a shell casing taps the wall then the floor and my ears are ringing. The door is empty again and I hear the moaning of a dying man who wished to kill but did not think to die himself.
This is a sort of warehouse, a dark place haunted by the ghostlike smells of the thousand cargoes once stored here. I weave among the bales, finding and feeling my way, using my fingers for eyes. Behind there is movement again….My hand lifts a latch, the door closes softly behind me. I feel for a bar and find it. Carefully I place the bar across the door. A stairway leads into upper darkness.
The air is close and hot and I climb. My shirt presses damply against my chest and at the head of the stairs I pause, aware of life around me…the stirring and breathing of many bodies, a whisper of movement, a deep sigh, the sickish-sweet smell of opium and of long-dead smoke…a smell of living bodies in thick, close air.
Moving, I stumble over legs. A faint voice is plaintive with protest….These are coolies waiting for another day of labor—the loaders of ships, the carriers of bales, sodden with opium and working only for a bowl of rice, a dried fish, and the dark stuff of the poppy’s heart which brings them escape from hunger, misery, and life.
Behind me there is a splintering….The door is open for the air stirs faintly. Trapped.
Through the bodies, over them, stumbling, suddenly a vacant place among them and an idea…Swiftly I strip, glad that my body is bronzed by sun and wind. Naked to my shorts, I tuck the legs up until I have only what looks to be a breechclout, and then I lie down among them…among the collapsed bodies and among the insect life that accompanies them….I lie still, clutching my pistol beneath my body, waiting.
A light flashes and plays over the room, over the bodies. There is a stirring and a growing chorus of complaint. It is a huge loft and over a hundred men are sprawled about. A low voice says, “I don’t think he came up here.” And a reply in the music of Malaya, “If he did, he went out. He is not here now.”
The flashlight snapped off; feet murmur on the stairs. Rising, I listen, then climb into my clothing. My hand feels for my gun to be sure it is still with me….On the floor a man stirs, whimpering softly like a sick child in the night…and then I move away.
Day was a vague promise over the temple towers when I was once more in my room. After a shower I stretched out on the hard bed of the tropics and stared up at the ceiling beyond the mosquito netting.
Who had alerted them to the fact that I was searching for Gwen Moran? Or could these have been casual thieves? Or someone who suspected me of being an American agent, spying on the local Communist allies? Most of all, I wondered, where was Gwen Moran, the girl whose lovely face had been living with me since the pictures arrived a few hours before?
A friend of my father’s had known that I was in Macao; his cabled offer had reached me there. Five thousand and all expenses if I could bring her home safely. Pictures and details were to go by air and would be awaiting me in Bangkok.
Gwen Moran had been one of a party of five. She had come ashore from a world cruise…and had disappeared from her hotel later, leaving a note that she had fallen in love and would be married at once…a cable to her father to the same effect. Not to worry, details later.
Silence, then, and nothing more…silence, until one night an agonized cry for help over the shortwave…A man in Los Angeles, idling over his set in the morning’s small hours, caught the call…another in Manila picked it up. A frightened girl begging for help, a call cut quickly off.
American officials could learn nothing. Local reports were that she had run off with a man, perhaps had flown to Singapore. The following morning my own inquiries began. I only knew two things—she had access to a shortwave set and her kidnapper could hire killers. Both indicated wealth, perhaps power.
The shortwave clue cooled swiftly—it could have been no known set in the vicinity of Bangkok. So I gathered the details. Gwen had come ashore with her party and they had stopped at the Oriental, an excellent and respectable hotel near the river, a cooler location than my own stopping place. The party had consisted of a man and wife in their early fifties and the three girls in their twenties. They had gone to the Chez Eve for dinner.
Gwen attracted immediate and appreciative attention. She danced with a French Colonel, with the local director of an American firm, twice with former American flyers. And she had talked briefly with a man in the shadows at one side of the floor.
Nobody knew what was said or who he was. Returning to her table, Gwen made no comment. Local officials knew nothing more….I fell asleep mulling over the few known facts.
At noon I awakened suddenly and swung my feet to the floor. My tongue was thick and my brain was foggy. The lethargy left by sleeping through the hot, still morning deadened my muscles. By the time I’d shaved and showered I felt better, so I went around to the Chez Eve and perched on a bar stool.
In Bangkok, this is the place to go. It is a nightclub, a restaurant, an odd combination of the American and Eastern. Seated on one of the chromium bar stools, I ordered a long, cool Myrtle Bank Punch and began to study the situation.
A man walked up and straddled the stool beside mine. He was enormously fat with a tiny mouth and three chins. A waxed mustache perched on his lip and he had a high forehead from which the hair waved back gracefully. He smelled of expensive perfume and his large, intelligent eyes met mine in the mirror back of the bar. He smiled. Because of the perfume I viewed the smile with some skepticism.
From an inside pocket he drew a leather wallet, carefully extracting five neat, new hundred-dollar bills. He placed them carefully on the bar between us, and atop them he placed a plane ticket for Los Angeles.
“California!” His voice held a fluted overtone. “How lovely at this time of year!”
Extracting a long, slim cigarette from a gold case, he offered the case to me and when I declined, returned it to his pocket and signaled for a drink. He fitted the cigarette into an ivory holder. “So much cooler in California, Mr. Cross. Have you been there lately?”
So he knew my name. The bartender came and spoke with respect as he took the order for a drink.
“Not lately,” I said, “and I’ve no plan to return soon.”
He lit his cigarette, smiling wisely. Then he touched the money lightly with his manicured fingers, moving it toward me. “A good-bye to Bangkok, then a quick flight…Ah, how I envy you!”
“There’s the ticket,“ I said, “and there’s the cash. They are yours, aren’t they?”
He shrugged dismally. “They are a present, Mr. Cross. A present from someone who wishes you well. Someone who would like to think of you sunning on the beaches of faraway California instead of encountering the risks of life in our dark and lonely streets. Oh, I’m sure, Mr. Cross, that you would find it so much more healthful if you were there!”
“Pick up the money,” I said quietly, “and tell whoever you work for to deliver Gwen Moran to me not later than midnight.”
His face stiffened and he put his cigarette down quickly. “I know nothing of this Gwen Moran,” he said impatiently, “but you are a fool! A miserable, interfering fool!” He hitched his fat behind off the stool and straightened his coat, but before he could speak again my left hand shot out and the fingers went down inside his collar. Closing my fist I bent my knuckles hard against his Adam’s apple. He gagged and gasped, his eyes bulging, his hands fighting wildly to tear my fist away.
Pulling him close I said quietly, “Don’t call me a fool, Fat Boy”—nobody had noticed us; the bartender was deeply engrossed in a flashy brunette down the bar—“just go tell your boss what I said!” I jerked him toward me to get him off balance, then shoved back hard and let go.
He hit the floor on his fat behind. Heads turned and the bartender hurried up toward us. My left hand held my drink and I glanced at the bartender and shook my head gravely. “Think of that! Only one drink, too!”
Fat Boy was rising awkwardly from the floor, and when he straightened up his eyes were ugly with hatred. I gestured toward the money on the bar. “Yours,” I said.
“Use it,” he told me, low-voiced, “use it, or by the—!” He jerked his coat down and bustled out.
The bartender looked at the money and then at me. I picked up the bills. Who was I to look gift horses in the teeth? Then I held one of the century notes in my fingers and glanced up at the bartender. “That guy,” I asked. “Who was he?”
The bartender glanced at the century note. “His name is Siatin,” he said. “He’s secretary to some big shot. Or right-hand man for him.”
“What big shot?”
He hesitated, not liking it much but liking the money more. “Banjak,” he said, and he spoke the name in a low voice.
“And who,” I asked, “is he?”
He hesitated again. “Everybody knows him,” he said. “He’s from an old family in Thailand, but a very unpopular family. Lately”—he glanced right and left, wiping a glass—“they say he’s dickering with the Reds. But he’s got money, he’s got power, and there’s men working for him who’d cut your throat slick as a whistle.”
The century note was folded and slid over the counter. He palmed it. “You watch your step,” he said warningly.
“Thanks.” I got up and straightened my coat a little. “My name,“ I said, “is Martin Cross. I’m looking for Gwen Moran, that American girl who disappeared. If you hear anything, let me know.”
“Yeah.” He put the glass down and picked up another. “That Banjak,“ he said softly, “he’s completely nuts over blondes.”
Banjak’s name was a sure way to ring down a curtain of silence, I soon discovered. But here and there a ray of light filtered through the curtain. He had an importing and exporting business…largely, rumor said, oil and rubber to Russia and Red China…and tin. He had an estate on the Mekong on the Indo-Chinese border, plus a house in town, a huge, ancient, rambling place. From that estate a man with a launch could get to Indo-China in five minutes, to Burma in a matter of two or three hours, to Red China in but a little more.
It was almost dark when I entered the Chez Eve again, and when I found a seat at the crowded bar I ordered a bourbon and soda from the same bartender. He glanced at me, nodded slightly, and said, “Nice to see you again, Mr. Cross. Some men were looking for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, catching his expression. Whoever had been looking for me had been anything but friendly, I could bank on that.
Over the bourbon and soda I contemplated the situation. If it was true that Banjak was active in supplying the Reds, a shortwave set would be an asset, and it might be either here or on the Mekong. And one thing was certain. If Banjak had gone so far as to kidnap an American girl she was either out of the city or extremely well guarded.
A man came into the room and walked across and slid onto a stool beside me. He was a sallow man with hollow cheeks and a lank, unhealthy frame. His eyes were large and luminous, his features a mixture of Eastern peoples. He ordered a drink and under his breath said, “You are Mr. Cross? You search for the young American lady?”
“That’s right.” I kept my own voice low.
“I can take you to her,” he said softly, “but quickly, or she will be taken away.”
“To the Mekong?”
“Who knows?” He lifted a shoulder. “If you will come, it is outside the door, and stop for nothing. You have frightened Banjak, and a frightened Banjak is dangerous.”
It could be a trap or it could be the lead I wanted. “Your interest is what?” I asked him.
He lifted his drink and speaking around the edge of the glass, he said, “Nothing…except that the lovely lady looked very sad, and what I am not strong enough to do might be done by another, such as you.”
He finished his drink and walked outside and I followed him after a minute or so. He was standing near a palm and when he saw me he started to walk away, going very slowly. I followed at a reasonable distance, which he seemed to want….The street was brightly lit, but not for long….He turned into a dingy byway between two buildings and issuing out on the street of the Bampon Boon Building…then he began to hurry. Soon he paused and lit a cigarette and I joined him.
“We go faster now,” he said, gesturing at an antique car standing by the curb. It was something hatched in a remote period probably not long after the Spanish-American War, if anybody remembers when that was. Surprisingly, the motor purred like a contented tomcat and when I climbed in we moved smoothly away from the curb and down the street.
“I am a clerk,” he explained, “a seller of jade in a shop. Miss Moran had come to my shop to buy jade and she was followed there by a man I knew. He approached her, and she was very sharp with him and when she talked again to me I showed her a bit of jade and warned her about this fat man…that he worked for a powerful man who served a country that was very dangerous, that she should join her friends at once and stay with them.”
“And then?”
“She asked that I escort her to the hotel with her purchases and my employer permitted me to go, but we were followed there.”
“By whom?”
“It is said you have met Siatin. It was he.”
Suddenly the car slowed, driving down a long avenue lined with trees. This was not exactly a street, and not exactly a country lane, but it resembled both. Turning the car, suddenly he stopped under some trees and got out. Set well back in a huge garden was a vast, rambling old mansion.
“It is the house of Banjak?”
“Yes, and what you will do now, I do not know.”
“Watch me,” I said.
Stepping into the street I started for the gate. My idea was to go right up to the house, demand to see the girl, and if she wanted to come, take her away. There was a chance in a hundred it might work or that I might at least find out if she was still in Bangkok. If that failed, then I could take other steps. They had started the rough stuff, but I would avoid it, if possible.
There was an iron gate between stone columns and it was standing open just a little. There was a small hut for a gate tender but he was, fortunately, nowhere in sight. I entered and walked swiftly up the gravel drive.
At the huge double door, I pulled a bell cord and waited. The doors opened finally, and a tall man in a long coat stood there. He wore a small round cap on his head.
“I want to see Banjak,” I said.
“I am sorry. He is not here.” The servant started to close the door but I put my shoulder against it and stepped in. He backed away from me, his eyes wary but not frightened. “I have said he is not here. If you persist, you shall have trouble.”
“I was born to trouble,” I replied shortly. “You will tell him I am here. If not him, tell Siatin. But it’s Banjak I want to see.”
Siatin stepped into sight from a doorway concealed by curtains. His fat jowls were set and hard now, and there was a light in his eyes that was anything but promising for my future. When I started to step by him the servant put up a hand as if to stop me and I swung him aside. Face to face with Siatin, I said, “Where’s that girl? I want her and I want her now!”
Before he could speak, there was a slight movement and on the steps at the end of the hall was a huge man clad in a white silk suit with a green sash. He was built like a Turkish wrestler, and he came slowly down the steps. He paused a dozen feet away, his black eyes utterly cold.
“You wished to see me? I am Banjak.”
“I have come for Gwen Moran.”
“I have never heard of her.” He spoke calmly, his eyes level.
“You’re a liar.” I said it flatly. I was in this as deep as I could get now, and my only chance was to push on through. Anyway, I hate to take a pushing around. This man had tried to have me killed, and he had kidnapped an American girl. In my own way, I, too, could be ruthless. “Gwen Moran is here or in some place of which you know. I want her now. And if I don’t get her at once, I’ll take steps.”
He smiled, a faintly supercilious smile, yet impatient, too. “What steps?” he sneered. “Your government will do nothing. It would be bad for propaganda. There is nothing you can do. Nothing at all.”
It was coming up in me and I could feel it. I wanted to take a swing at this big lug. Stifling the impulse for the moment in favor of sometime more opportune, I said, “I’ve no intention of calling in my government. They have too many problems to bother with something I can handle myself.”
“You think well of yourself,” he said shortly. “Now leave, or I’ll have you beaten and thrown out.”
“Why don’t you try it?” I suggested. “What’s the matter? Are you a yellow rat aside from being a stealer of women?”
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it even a little, and he liked it less that Siatin and the servant stood there listening. His face darkened with angry blood and he took a catlike step forward, then stopped. “Siatin,” he said, “have him beaten and thrown out.” Deliberately, he turned and started for the stairs.
If I was thrown out now—but I wasn’t going to be. Not without a fight.
With a lunge, I started for him. Siatin and the servant both sprang for me, but they were too slow. Head down, I rammed Banjak in the behind and at the same time grabbed his ankles and jerked up, hard. Grabbed in that way, a man can only fall on his face, but he strikes headfirst. Banjak came down hard, only the soft carpeting on the stairs saving him from a cracked skull. I went over him, and up the stairs.
The servant was fast but not eager, and Siatin much too fat and slow. I made the top of the stairs with time to spare and glanced swiftly both ways. Somewhere far off in the huge old building I heard a bell ringing.
Now that I was in the house I meant to stay. That bell was calling help, I knew. But with luck they would not find me. The left side of the house opened onto the garden, so I turned left, but then circled around by a passage that led across the building and ducked into the first door on the right side.
It was a cozy room lined with books. On the stand was a cigarette, still smoking. There was also an open book. Evidently it was from here that Banjak had come. I crossed the room to another door, and opening it, stepped into a bedchamber. Crossing that, I passed through an ultramodern bathroom into a larger chamber that was empty. Behind me somewhere, I heard a door open.
COMMENTS: The mention in this story of the nightclub Chez Eve and the fact that Gwen was seen dancing with a “French Colonel” suggests that it might have been written prior to the mid-1950s, when the French were forced to leave Indochina. Chez Eve opened sometime in the 1940s and was famous as one of the few air-conditioned public places in Bangkok. Louis’s comment about “American flyers” is probably based on the fact that two of the partners who owned the Oriental Hotel were pilots from the USA; a number of others in the expatriate community were men who had been with the wartime OSS. Although I do not believe that Louis was ever in Thailand, he did make several stops just to the south, along the Malay Peninsula, prior to World War II, a somewhat similar environment.
Obviously, Dad was still finding his way with this one; but it was shaping up to be a fun story and I wish he’d continued it. I’m especially intrigued by Louis’s mention of his protagonist’s father. Heroes with important, and still living, fathers are somewhat uncommon in L’Amour fiction. I really wonder what he was planning to do with that relationship, or if it was just a way to get Martin Cross involved.
The next story is also set in Bangkok. For a while, I wondered if returning to write about this city was due to the influence of a pair of Thai brothers my mom and dad met in the late 1950s. They originally came to Southern California to go to college, and have since become virtual cousins of ours. We have now known four generations of this prestigious Thai family. Yet both “Citizen of the Darker Streets” and the next title, “Where Flows the Bangkok,” feel more like they come from an earlier period, after World War II, but before 1958 or so.